The producers inevitably become a crutch for said artists. People really only ever seem interested in them because it's a vessel for the producer to give new music to fans so the reliance becomes on the producer – they inevitably sign more artists than they’re able to create albums for, top their label’s output with their frequent work for the far bigger cheques coming from the heavy-hitters and it proves to be just too much.

Taking Timbaland for instance, Sebastian and Attitude are unlikely to ever have solo releases; Neptunes – no releases followed for Roscoe P Coldchain, FamLay, Vanessa Marquez, Ab liva, etc.

The biggest buzz some artists ever receive is the fact that they signed with <insert big name producer here>. I suppose the trick is bringing an artist in who can do enough on their own to not need to solely rely on the producer.

Prince too – so few of the people he signed could generate enough interest as solo artists that when Prince lost interest in them, sadly, everyone else did too (clearly not saying that’s the case for all Prince signings!).